R. Allen Stanford

Allen Stanford)
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For the Irish actor/director, see Alan Stanford.
Sir Robert Allen Stanford, KCN (born March 24, 1950) is a prominent financier, philanthropist, and sponsor of professional sports, who has been charged with fraud. Stanford is the chairman of the privately held, wholly owned Stanford Financial Group of Companies. Virgin Islands, he holds dual citizenship, being a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda and a United States citizen.

Stanford was the first American to be knighted by that Commonwealth nation and was presented with the honor by the then Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda, Sir James Carlisle.
In early 2009, Stanford became the subject of several fraud investigations, and on February 17, 2009, was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud and multiple violations of U.S.

securities laws for alleged "massive ongoing fraud" involving $8 billion in certificates of deposits. The FBI raided three of Stanford's offices in Houston, Memphis, and Tupelo, Mississippi. On February 27, 2009, the SEC amended its complaint to describe the alleged fraud as a "massive Ponzi scheme". He was arrested by the FBI on June 18, 2009.


Biography
Early years
Stanford grew up in Mexia, Texas. His father, James Stanford, is former mayor of a small town Mexia, Texas, and a member of the Board of Directors of Stanford Financial Group.

After his parents divorced in 1959, Stanford and his brother went to live with their mother. Both of his parents remarried.
James' father, Lodis Stanford, began as a barber and became an insurance salesman.However, in order to provide credibility to his company, Allen Stanford claimed his grandfather started the bank in 1932 which is false. Stanford Financial’s clients are affluent investors, institutions, and emerging growth companies throughout the world.

Knighted by the country in 2006, Stanford uses the title "Sir Allen." Antiguans also generally refer to Stanford using the title.
Family and personal life
Stanford married Susan (nee Williams), a dental hygienist, of Teague, Texas in September 1975. Susan's father was a train conductor With her, Stanford has one daughter, Randi (26).

Stanford and his wife are separated.
In November 2008, Stanford denied rumors that he had fired his girlfriend, Andrea Stoelker, the president of Antigua's 2008 Stanford Super Series tournament board of directors, reportedly after she had a liaison with Chris Gayle, the captain of the Stanford Superstars: "These rumours are complete horse manure. We've been together seven years and we're happier than ever." Stoelker had also been the manager of The Pavilion, a 5-star restaurant in Antigua owned by Stanford.
In April 2009, after an exclusive tour, Reuters reported that the plush Houston headquarters of the Stanford Financial Group were adorned with a lavish personal bathroom (complete with discreet private exit) for its eponym, together with a sizeable bar in his massive office.

Journalist Chris Baltimore summed it up as "a mass of marble and mahogany that once boasted a five-star dining room, movie theater, professional kitchen and wine bar. Every part of the building is grandiose, which speaks to the larger-than-life image Stanford created as a jet-setting financier, sports promoter and philanthropist."
Looking around the office, Baltimore found it "easy to just gawk because of the grandeur of the place":
Among several framed certificates hung on a wall is one with the gold seal of Antigua and Barbuda pronouncing Stanford Knight Commander, which allowed him to use the title Sir Allen Stanford, and a letter on White House stationery dated Jan.Bush.

Then on to the bathroom -- a chamber of black granite and mahogany, with a gigantic mirror and granite countertop, flanked with shelves of fluffy white towels and toiletries, including a bottle of "Brilliant Brunette" shampoo.

Career
Stanford started in business in Waco, where he opened a body-building gym, but it failed. His first success in business was in Houston real estate from the Texas oil bubble burst in the early 1980s. His partner in the real estate venture was his father James. In the 1980s, Stanford and his father made a fortune buying up depressed Houston real estate and selling it years later as the market recovered.

private-sector oversight body, were investigating Stanford's company Stanford Financial Group, questioning the means by which Stanford International Bank manages consistently to make higher-than-market returns to its depositors. A former executive told SEC officials that Stanford presented hypothetical investment results as actual historical data in sales pitches to clients. Stanford claimed his CDs were as safe as, or safer than, US government-insured accounts.
Federal agents raided the offices of Stanford Financial on February 17, 2009, and are presently "treating it as a kind of crime scene — cautioning people not to leave fingerprints."
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Allen Stanford with "massive ongoing fraud" centred on an eight-billion-dollar investment scheme. Stanford's assets, along with those of his companies, were frozen and placed into receivership by a U.S. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) announced that it has taken over the local operations of the Bank of Antigua (BOA) which will be renamed the Eastern Caribbean Amalgamated Bank (ECAB). The Venezuelan Government also took over local operations of Stanford's bank in that nation.
On February 27, the SEC said that Stanford and his accomplices operated a "massive Ponzi scheme", misappropriated billions of investors' money and falsified the Stanford International Bank's records to hide their fraud.

"Stanford International Bank's financial statements, including its investment income, are fictional," the SEC said.
In an interview on April 20 at the law offices of Houston criminal attorney Dick DeGuerin, however, Stanford denied any wrongdoing. His companies had been well-run, he claimed, until the SEC "disembowelled" them.
On June 18, 2009, Stanford was taken into custody by FBI agents.

According to DeGuerin:

Federal agents in black SUVs surrounded his girlfriend's house this afternoon, and just sat there. So he did, and he asked them, 'If you've got a warrant, take me into custody.If you don't, I'm going to Houston.' And they did, so they arrested him.

Other business matters
Tax liens
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming much of a US Tax Court’s ruling on a dispute emanating from Stanford’s days of running the bank in Montserrat. In short, the court found that Stanford and his wife, Susan, under reported their 1990 federal taxes by $423,531.36. Public records show Stanford owes hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes.

There are four federal tax liens from 2007 and 2008 against Stanford totaling more than $212 million.
Money laundering investigation
The FBI and other agencies have been conducting an ongoing investigation of Stanford since 2008 for possible involvement in money laundering for Mexico's Gulf Cartel.
Trademark infringement lawsuit
In 2001, Stanford said publicly that his great-great-great grandfather was a relative of Leland Stanford, the founder of Stanford University. He funded the restoration of Leland Stanford's mansion in Sacramento, California in an effort "to help preserve an important piece of Stanford family history," and hired his own genealogists to prove he was a member of the Leland Stanford family. However, Stanford University denied there was "any genealogical relationship between Allen Stanford and Leland Stanford," and in 2008 filed a trademark infringement suit against Stanford claiming the school’s name was being used “in a way that creates public confusion” and is “injurious.”
Interests
Cricket
Stanford created and funded the Stanford 20/20 cricket tournament in the West Indies, for which he built his own ground in Antigua. This team also took home the US280k Super Series prize after defeating Middlesex on 27 October 2008.
In June 2008, Stanford and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) signed a deal for five Twenty20 internationals between England and a West Indies all-star XI with a total prize fund of £12.270m (US $20 million) to be awarded to the team that wins the Championship.

It was the largest prize ever offered to a team for a single tournament. This was in jeopardy after a row with Digicel, the sponsors of the West Indies cricket team, who were unhappy about sponsorship of the event. Eventually, the dispute was sorted out and the first Championship was won by Stanford Superstars, who defeated the England team by 10 wickets, humiliating them in the Twenty 20 arena.
On February 17, 2009, when news of the fraud investigation became public, the ECB and WICB withdrew from talks with Stanford on sponsorship. On February 20 the ECB announced it has severed its ties with Stanford and cancelled all contracts with him.
Philanthropy
The Stanford Financial Group's website said, as of mid-February 2009, that "Sir Allen supports charitable, cultural, educational, social and sporting events and organizations throughout the world" Stanford wrote in the 2008 edition of the Stanford Eagle, a glossy company magazine, that ""St.

Jude Children's Research Hospital has been Stanford's corporate charity of choice for three years, and our partnership has raised over $15 million for the hospital during that time." On February 19, 2009, a spokesman for the hospital said that it had received only $8 million, during 2007 and 2008.
In 2005, Stanford was named one of the founding members of the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business Circle of Honor and spoke about leadership and ethics at the college's undergraduate commencement. Stanford Financial Group endowed the college's Distinguished Leadership Speaker Series and its video wall.